---
title: But what could even he have done in that storm so fierce, so irresis… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: But what could even he have done in that storm so fierce, so irresistible, so overwhelming? Who acts: Ilmarinen. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, A Dreadful Vengeance, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, A Dreadful Vengeance, sentence 84

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But what could even he have done in that storm so fierce, so irresistible, so overwhelming?

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**Who acts:** Ilmarinen · **What happens:** do · **To what, where:** storm

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This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, A Dreadful Vengeance. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Ilmarinen), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg66819:30:84
# text = But what could even he have done in that storm so fierce, so irresistible, so overwhelming?
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	7	obj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
4	even	even	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	aux	_	_
7	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	10	det	_	_
10	storm	storm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
11	so	so	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	fierce	fierce	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	so	so	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	irresistible	irresistible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	so	so	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	overwhelming	overwhelming	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | could · perfect | Ilmarinen |  |  | that storm |  | what *obj* | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, Project Gutenberg book 66819 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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